Reading about canned pineapple's history got me thinking about a conversation I had with an 80-plus-year-old farmer last fall. We were at a pancake breakfast, and he asked me if I wanted to eat the pineapple on his fruit plate. He told me he can't eat pineapple because when he was a kid growing up during WWII, one of his family members got a ration of canned pineapple. It had been so long since he and the other kids in his family had any sugar, they "stole" a coupe cans of pineapple and drank all the thick syrup in the cans. Then they got sick to their stomachs from all that syrup. So now he and his cousin can't stand pineapple!

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